WhoDeyRevolution

The Effect of Silent Evidence

By recommendation of Comrade Bienemy, I have been reading an incredibly interesting (and way above my head) book called The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In it he talks about something called silent evidence, which is the result of the human tendency to consider only the facts presented, while ignoring other relevant facts that are less apparent, or that take more energy to uncover.

This concept made me think of the NFL college talent scouting process, and how scouts are charged with not only analyzing the apparent facts of potential draft picks, but by going several layers deeper into the player's history and personality traits in order to determine their compatibility with the team's philosophy. The silent evidence in this case would not just be a quick search of a player's criminal history, which would only include the times they got caught. Besides, this information is gathered by the league office, making it widely available to every NFL team. The silent evidence would be the kind of things players have done in the past WITHOUT getting caught, or simply the character flaws that the college coach of a player isn't going to give away to a scout that he does not know.

What I have been told by an anonymous Comrade who has an in depth knowledge of the NFL scouting process is that aside from analyzing film and practices all year long, a lot of the real data is learned (just like working in the corporate world and being in sales) in that you have to develop relationships. The real trade secret is getting to know the assistant coaches. It takes time, many years to build a relationship with an assistant coach, as they are the ones who will tell you the real character of the college player. All criminal information is supposed to be sent to the NFL league office now, so technically, all teams should have access to that high level type of information. But just as we all know from our college experiences, there are many star players or kids of multi-millionaires, where certain known incidents just never seem to make it to campus security or to the local police recordings. 

Completely Unverified (But Hilarious) Rumors About The Bengals, Part II

After a very successful first chapter to "Completely Unverified (But Hilarious) Rumors About The Bengals", we have received another ridiculous story...this time from a female comrade.  Again, we cannot verify the accuracy of this report in anyway shape or form.  We have no idea if it is actually true (but as always, it probably is).  If you were a baker on the East Side back in the mid-80's, we'd love to hear from you.

Here is the story:

About 20-25 years ago, a man went into a Mariemont bakery and told the worker (who happened to also be the manager) that he wanted a loaf of bread. She started to wrap it up, and the man asked how much it cost. She told him the price and he said, "I'll give you half of that amount, since it is one day old bread." The manager said the Bakery didn't operate that way and the price was not a negotiable price so he walked out the door.

A week later, there was the same man and he tried it again. The same manager went through the exact protocol and said this specific Bakery didn't have a flexible pricing plan. So, he walked out the door. This went on for a few more weeks until the man was never seen in this bakery again.

Question: Why does everyone in this same bakery still laugh about this story today?

Reading Between the Lines - a Player/Scout and Review of the Scouting Issue

Bengals.com brings to our attention that Andrew Whitworth is helping to coach the offensive linemen from the North squad in the Senior Bowl.  Someone wouldn't be doubling up as both player and scout, would they?  Given our paltry scouting department, it's difficult not to read between the lines and think that in addition to Mike Brown watching college bowl games with a notepad and relying on our coaches to scout as a poor attempt to make up for an inadequate scouting department, we are also getting one of our O-linemen into the act. 

Sure, maybe Whitworth is bored in the offseason and thought he'd get out on the field and try his hand at coaching.  But (based on absolutely nothing but pure speculation), doesn't it seem more likely that he was either asked to take a look at the linemen in the Senior Bowl or took it upon himself to give extra manpower to do so?  If so, it's admirable Whit has agreed or decided to do this considering the scouting situation but our players should not be relied on for these duties.  

Baghdad Hob Prepares Bengals Fans for More Draft Stupidity

Geoff Hobson, the mouthpiece of the toilet of the NFL, posted this article about how Cedric Benson is open to returning to the Bengals next season, "Even if they take a running back fairly high in the draft, which they are expected to do."

After banging my head against a wall, I tried to come up with a bright side to this. Then I banged my head against the wall some more. This would be, by far and away, the dumbest move in the entire draft history of Mike Brown's Bengals (yes, it's possible).

Clearly, Mike Brown and the brain-trust-fart in charge of making this team a Super Bowl contender competitive of the field of play, does not actually watch the Bengals play football. If they watched the team play football, they would see that the Bengals can not protect the quarterback. They would see that the reason the Bengals get no production runnning the ball is because the offensive line couldn't move the Univeristy of Cincinnati's D-Line around.

Yet, we are going after a running back.

Two Great Enquirer Articles

Congratulations to the Bengals players and coaches.  You played hard and you deserved that win.  Congratulations to all of the Comrades who took part in Project Mayhem Task #1.  Judging by the results posted here it appears to be a great success.  If you called, post your results in the comments.  I think on behalf of all Comrades, I would like to thank all of the JERK line operators for being remarkably polite and respectful when handing our shenanigans.  I take your politeness to mean that you support the Revolution, and hope that you send a message to Mikey about how much "Mental and emotional" damage he caused. 

Time for Keels & Munoz to Go?

After watching the TV replay of Sunday night's embarassment against the Saints, I realized it might be time for a fresh set of eyes to announce the pre-season games.  Paul Keels (current Ohio State Football radio announcer) and Anthony Munoz (greatest Bengal of all-time) have been featured on Bengals Pre-season TV for as long as I can remember, but the amount of errors and omissions mount with each game.

Take a cue from the...Arizona Cardinals???

Uh oh.  A fellow bottom tier team might be getting its act together.  The Arizona Cardinals are apparently restructuring their scouting department and look to add as many as four additional scouts, according to The Arizona Republic.  Meanwhile, our scouting department continues to have six people in it not counting the Personal Assistant.

It's fairly common knowledge that our scouting department is significantly smaller than most NFL franchises.  The Bengals rely on their coaches to conduct some of the scouting as evidenced by the coaches' annual trips to the Senior Bowl every year after the end of the season.  Most NFL teams don't do this. 

Now, the Arizona Cardinals, another franchise that has struggled, has recognized that the way they have been doing things could be improved.  Can you imagine how huge this story would be if it were about your Cincinnati Bengals?  How big of a sign would that be to Bengals fans that ownership wants to improve the franchise from top to bottom?  Such a move would improve the organization's administration and eventually its personnel after the additional scouts contributions.  It could even improve the coaching if decreasing their role in scouting allowed them to focus more on traditional coaching duties.  WDR would be ELATED if such an article hit the local newspapers about the Bengals.  It doesn't take much to get Bengal fans excited.  This would be a clear sign to us that we are committed to winning. 

One related piece of advice for the sake of our readers' health...Don't hold your breath.

Brooks Groin Injury Lingering???

It has been reported that Ahmad Brooks was unable to participate in voluntary workouts because of lingering pains associated with his season ending groin injury.  To refresh your memories, Brooks suffered an injury during the Cleveland shootout on September 16th, 2007.  Questions regarding the return of Brooks surrounded the team for several weeks ensuing this game, ending with him being placed on the injured reserve.  Now it is March 2008, and the injury is bad enough to keep him from working out with the rest of the team.  These are the facts, but now I would like to move along to the speculation.